1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid crystal display device formed so that electrostatic destruction of each transparent electrode can be prevented and quality inspection of the device can be performed with a pattern checker, and a method for producing the liquid crystal display device.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, a plurality of cell substrates for a liquid crystal display device are simultaneously, separately formed by cutting a large glass substrate provided with transparent electrodes, an orientation film, and so forth. If a large amount of static electricity accumulates when the cell substrates are rubbed during an orientation process, discharge occurs between adjacent transparent electrodes, which may result in inferior display due to damage to both the transparent electrodes and the orientation films by arc heat. Accordingly, when the cell electrodes are produced, prevention of electrostatic destruction is widely employed, in which the static electricity accumulated in the transparent electrodes can be removed to an identical potential pattern conductive to the transparent electrodes via lead patterns, which is previously formed outside a cell substrate-formed region on the large glass substrate.
However, when such an identical potential pattern is completely conductive to the transparent electrodes, each transparent electrode on the large glass substrate cannot be electrically independent. Thus, before a cutting process, it is not possible to perform quality inspection to verify whether or not short-circuiting or disconnection occurs by bringing a pattern checker in contact with each transparent electrode.
Accordingly, as shown in FIG. 3, there is a known conventional technique to provide minute gaps 3a of several microns for discharging static electricity at extensions from lead patterns 3 which are extended from a cell substrate-formed region S so as to be connected to an identical potential pattern 4 and are used as terminals leading from transparent electrodes 2 corresponding to each cell substrate. In other words, by providing the minute gaps 3a, which are also called "arresters", static electricity accumulated in the transparent electrodes 2 during the production process can be discharged through the minute gaps 3a. Thus, discharge between adjacent transparent electrodes 2 hardly occurs. In addition, each transparent electrode 2 is electrically, mutually independent by the provision of the minute gaps 3a. Therefore, convenience of quality inspection is improved because quality inspection with the pattern checker can be performed before the cutting process of the large glass substrate 1.
As described above, in order to provide the minute gap 3a in the lead pattern 3, inevitably, the lead patterns 3 must be extended outward from each cell substrate-formed region so as to be connected to the identical potential pattern 4, and the minute gap 3a must be formed at the extended portions. Thus, as shown in FIG. 3, a predetermined space needs to be reserved between adjacent different cell substrate-formed regions S. Consequently, according to the related art, a high density layout in which a large number of cell substrate-formed regions S are formed is not realized. This reduces the number of cell substrates which are separately obtained from one large glass substrate 1, which hinders productivity improvement and cost reduction.